De Mattei: Friendly Criticism of Rocco Buttiglione’s Theses

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

November 15, 2017

I have known Rocco Buttiglione for more than forty years. Both of us
were assistants to Professor Augusto Del Noce (1910-1989) at the Faculty of
Political Science at La Sapienza
University in Rome, but since then our positions have diverged, mainly regarding our judgment on modernity. Buttiglione believed that the historical
process inaugurated by the French Revolution was compatiblewith Christianity, but I believed it incompatible.Despite these differences, I appreciated
Buttiglione’s work as Minster of National Cultural Heritage in Berlusconi’s
government (2005-2006) and expressed my solidarity with him in 2004 when he
didn’t attain the nomination as European Commissioner as a result of having
called homosexuality “a sin”. I refer to all this in order to show my sincerity
in my “friendly criticism” of his theses, just as Buttiglione is truly sincere
when he argues with Professor Seifert, his “life-long friend” in his most
recent book (Friendly Responses to the Critics
of Amoris Laetitia, which included an essay introduction by Cardinal Gerard
Ludwig Müller, Ares, Milan 2017, p. 41).

The volume recently published has 200 pages, divided into four chapters.
There is nothing in it that Buttiglione’s readers don’t know.The chapters are in fact made up of essays
previously published in several places, between 2016 and 2017. This explains
the numerous repetitions, which, nonetheless, aid in a better understanding of his basic thesis: the possibility of
admitting the divorced and remarried to Communion, sincein certain cases, “even if the acts are illegitimate” , people “may not fall into mortal sin because of the absence of full knowledge
and deliberate consent” (p.172).

I have already had the occasion to criticize this position (see here:https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/11/de-mattei-increasing-confusion-cardinal.html)
Additionally, in order to justify it,
Buttiglione introduces a fallacious distinction between “grave sin”, “specified by the
object (by grave matter)” and “mortal
sin”, “specified by the effects on
the subject (it kills the soul)”. He writes “ all mortal sins are also grave sins, but not all grave sins are also
mortal. It may happen in fact that in some cases grave matter has not been
accompanied by full awareness and deliberate consent.” (p. 173).

This thesis had already been rejected by John Paul II, who, when faced
with the proposal by some theologians and Fathers at the 1984 Synod, of
introducing a threefold distinction in sins – venial, grave, mortal – declared,
in the Post-Synod ExhortationReconciliatio et paenitentia, that in
the Church’s doctrine grave sin is identified with mortal sin. Here are his
words: “This threefold distinction might
illustrate the fact that there is a scale of seriousness among grave sins. But
it still remains true that the essential and decisive distinction is between
sin which destroys charity and sin which does not kill the supernatural life:
There is no middle way between life and death […]Hence, in the church's doctrine and
pastoral action, grave sin is in practice identified with mortal sin”.(Reconciliatio
et paenitentia n. 17).

Certainly, there are degrees in gravity of sins. Our Lord’s Crucifixion,
for example, was not of the same gravity for Pilate as it was for the Jewish
leaders (John, 19, 11). However, all grave sins are mortal and all mortal sins
are grave.According to Buttiglione, on
the other hand, cohabitation is always a “grave
wound” for the moral good of the person, yet not always a “mortal wound” (p.174). It all depends on
the “circumstances”, which, “do not change the nature of the act, but may
change the judgment on the person’s responsibility.” (p. 174). The Church,
therefore, “may exceptionally give the
Sacraments, if it is verified, despite objective disagreement with Christian
morality,that the subject finds himself
in a condition of mortal sin as a result ofsubjective attenuatingcircumstances.” (p. 197).The
adulterer, for example, may“find himself in a situation of sin, but not
mortal sin” (p.175). “Thus, while the rule is valid without
exceptions, the behavior unlikethe
rule, is not always culpable in the same way.”(p,185). The exception counts
for the behavior, not for the rule,but
– one wonders- how can the moral rule
be violated if not by behavior?

Buttilgione denies that Pope Francis’ position and his own fall into “situational
ethics”, condemned by the Church, but to be convincing it is necessary to
demonstrate what it affirms and what it denies. Unfortunately I have to
reiterate, along with Josef Seifert, Carlos Casanova, Corrado Gnerre, Claudio
Pierantomni and other excellent critics of Buttiglione, that the position of
Amoris laetitia, coincides with that of “situation ethics” or more precisely
“circumstantialethics”.

A typical characteristic of situation ethics, is, according to Father
Angelo Perego, “the denial of the
decisive and constitutive function of the morality of the objective order” (Situation ethics, Edition “La Civiltà Cattolica” , Rome 1958,
p.106).In traditional morality, the
ultimate rule of human action is being, not the acting subject. Hence,
traditional morality is essentially objective, as it springs from being
[itself] and is continually in proportion to being.Situation ethics, on the other hand, are based on subjective becoming. In
Buttiglione’s and Pope Francis’ situation ethics, the ultimate constitutive
element of morality is of a strictly subjective nature. The moral law becomes
an extrinsic norm which contributes to determine practical judgment, without it
ever being the determining element.What
is the decisive factor?“Discernment” of the circumstances, on the
part of the confessor, who, like a magician, can transform good into evil and
evil into good.

Pius XII said: “We oppose with
three considerations or maxims against situation ethics. The first is We concede that God wants above
all and always, an upright intention; but this is not enough. He wants also
good action. The second is that a bad action is not permissible in order for
good to come from it (Rom, 3,8). The third is that there can be given
circumstances, in which a man, especially a Christian, must remember that it is
necessary to sacrifice everything, even his life, in order to save his soul.
All thecountless martyrs even in our
time, remind us of this. But would the mother of the Maccabees and her
children, Saints Perpetua and Felicitaswithout regard for their babies, Maria Goretti and thousands ofother men and women, venerated by the Church,
againstthe circumstances, have faced in vain and even wrongly a
sanguinary death? Certainly not; and they remain, with their blood, the most
eloquent witnesses to the truth, against the new morality”. (Discourse , April 18, 1952, in AAS, 44
(1952), pp. 417-418)..

Furthermore, as a friend of minenoted, if Buttiglione’s doctrine of the imputabilty
of guilt was valid, it would follow that even abortion could become a grave
sin, but not imputable to the woman who aborts, considering her
psychological-economic situation at the time of terminating her pregnancy and
of the psychological-economicproblems
that would be imposed on her in giving birth to a child.The same can be said of euthanasia, and a fortiori of sodomy, which would be the sin that
cries out for vengeance, but not imputable to the “sodomite” who is not like
that by choice, but by nature.

Rocco Buttiglione’s intellectual effort is also sterile,
as, beyond the words, the facts remain. And the facts are, that, in the
confessional, an increasing number of priests, on the basis of Amoris laetitia, are reassuring
penitents that Divine mercy covers their irregular situation and are inviting
them in all tranquility to receive Holy Communion.

Finally, we ask Professor Buttiglione: Have the
number of sacrilegious Communions and invalid Confessions increased or
diminished since Amoris Laetitia? Has
the notion of the indissolubility of matrimony been strengthened or has it been
diminished? The answer is clear. The new
“pastoral strategy” is destroying matrimony and the Sacraments; it is
dissolving the natural law and paving the way for new errors and heresies on
the doctrinal level and at the level of praxis. No sophism can deny this.